Sunday

Jun 3, 2018 at 5:00 AM

Since April 2, police have received 20 reports of overnight explosions in remote parts of the county. No one knows who is doing it, or why.

About 3:30 a.m. on Mother’s Day, a blast on rural Lonely Cottage Road in Bridgeton rocked the night. The explosion rattled windows and shook walls for at least a half-mile, and left a large muddy hole 3 feet deep by 5 feet wide on the roadside near the Bridgeton gun club.

“I was sitting in my living room and I heard this boom,” said Don Ort, whose house is a few hundred yards from crater. “It shook the house pretty good. I came out here right away. I grabbed my gun. I come outside and couldn’t smell anything, see anything. It’s darker than hell around here at night. We don’t have street lights.”

No cars. No people. It was silence after the blast, he said.

“Kinda spooky,” he said.

The May 13 incident is one in a string of 20 overnight explosions reported by residents from Coopersburg, Lehigh County and throughout Upper Bucks County that began on April 2, according to the Pennsylvania State Police. No one’s been injured and damage has been nil. The blasts usually occur between about 1 and 4 a.m., but no one knows who’s setting off the explosives or why.

The state police requested aid from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who swarmed the area interviewing residents.

“Two men in dark suits and dark car were banging on our front door and back door at the time until I answered. I could see they had badges under their coats, but they didn’t identify themselves,” said a resident on nearby Lodi Hill Road, who asked that her name not be used. “It was unnerving. Then they left.”

Investigators briefly closed Lonely Cottage Road. If they found anything, they aren’t saying.

“Nothing’s changed since the last press release,” state Trooper Marc Allen said last week when I called the Dublin barracks, which I took to mean “we aren’t saying nothing to nobody.”

Adding to the mystery is what’s being detonated and why. Speculation abounds in the Lonely Cottage Road area.

“We always hear a lot of gunshots and fireworks, various things like that as part of living here,” said Scott Freeman, a Realtor and member of the Palisades school board. He wasn’t home to hear the blast, but his neighbor did. “She said it scared the heck out of her. I don’t know if it’s somebody playing around and this is how they get their kicks.”

Or something else.

“Maybe it’s a terrorist trying out different formulas, you know, he found something on the internet and built it and is trying it, and they go into different areas at night because they don’t want to get caught,” said Eric Rosenberg, who has lived on nearby Lodi Hill Road for 40 years. “Or maybe it’s a high school kid who wants to put a bomb in a school and he’s trying it out.”

“Oh, I hope not,” said his wife, Anne Marie, looking out the window onto the quiet, empty road in front of their house.

Bridgeton is 6.8 square miles and has a population of about 1,300. It’s near state game lands, and is laced with narrow unpaved lanes and roads. It’s a place where nearly everyone has either a backhoe or a pickup truck, necessary tools for taming large, thickly wooded lots. People know each other, but mind their business.

“If you ask me, what they’re blasting, it’s Tannerite,” Ort said.

Tannerite is an explosive compound used in target practice created by combing ammonium nitrate, ammonium perchlorate, powdered aluminum and a few trace ingredients. It can only be detonated through high impact, such as a bullet. It’s popular with gun enthusiasts because hitting a target that explodes beats hitting a can, glass bottle or bulls-eye on a piece of paper.

A search of YouTube shows what seems to be a gun subculture of Tannerite enthusiasts, who stuff the explosive into old dishwashers, refrigerators and cars before shooting them and blowing them up. In one video, a man blows up a 425-pound pumpkin. In another, a 26-pound Gummy Bear is blasted.

“Tannerite’s the only thing I can think of. Most guys would do it up here just for fun. It’s not like they’re terrorists. They just like blowing up things for fun. We shoot everything up here,” he said, “except for humans.”

JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or jmullane@couriertimes.com.

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